


Memento Vivere

by JayD



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, IronDad and SpiderSon, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony-centric, it doesn’t delve into the nuances but it’s in tony’s pov, just a small footnote, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24176197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayD/pseuds/JayD
Summary: “If he’d been self-aware,” Peter starts, bringing his toast to his mouth and munching on it, “Couldn’t he have made his own backup server?”Tony starts to say, “Well- ” and then screeches to a halt.(Or: The Scarlet Witch did more than just give him a few visions)
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 14
Kudos: 381





	Memento Vivere

**Author's Note:**

> its 6 in the morning rn and i cant sleep so I'm clearing out my old folders and saw this ting - i thought that i might share it while I'm working on a current chapter for one of my other fics! it could be a little bit more polished but i dunno, there was something charming about it that i didn't add any more introspection - i think its nice the way it is! enjoy!

It starts with Peter.

Which seemed to be a recurring pattern. Because Tony has always been cautious in giving his heart away and he’d thought that Rogers (a righteous soldier and a whole fucking traitor who'd been loyal to everyone else except Tony) had finally been the last straw.

Trust was a feeble concept for a man like him and their disastrous departure from each other was less than unpleasant, less than clean, so it's difficult and frustrating and an uphill battle against a tide of thunderstorms to even look at another person and think; _they're probably not out to kill me_.

But it's always been so, so easy with him - with Peter who was kind and equally unforgiving at the same time. The kid was a contradiction of ideals that had clashed with one another because somehow, he'd expressed forgiveness for the _Merchant of Death_ but held a deep-seated contempt for the _American Hero_.

And Tony only starts seeing it because Rhodey had pointed it out.

\--

He hadn’t been giving it much thought at that time because there _had_ been more pressing concerns. Peter tried his hand out on chicken masala to feed Tony and honest to god, no meal should ever be that disconcerting shade of _red_ -

But Peter had small band-aids wrapped around his fingers and Tony can see the mess that he made on his marble counter and there's nothing but tightness and freedom and absolute _joy_ swimming in his chest, so he’d taken the plate handed to him with a smile and ruffled the spider-baby's hair just to get a squeak from the kid. Rhodey played along like a champ, and even if he's not particularly good with spicy food or while Tony himself had gone through an entire litre of milk, they both handed back empty plates to a kid who beamed up at them as if they handed him a scholarship to MIT.

And Tony, who has never had anyone do that for him, not since Edwin and Anna, didn't think much of anything else other than the fact that this fifteen-year-old boy from Queens actually _cared_.

Rhodey pulls him back from his own head when he says, “You accepted it.” They'd shooed Peter off into his room so the spiderling could take a well-deserved nap because cooking takes a toll on you, really – Tony could personally attest to that.

He sent his honey bear a confused glance over his shoulders as he washed the dishes.

“Accepted what?” He sets the clean plates aside, grabs the towel and wipes his hand. When he turns around, Rhodey was sporting a pensive look on his face.

After a beat, a smile - bright and hopeful, had replaced it, “The plate,” he said, “Peter handed you the plate of hellfire and you took it without batting an eyelash.”

Tony blinks at that, a little dumbfounded because _huh, I did - didn’t I?_

\--

A lot of the things that Tony forgot he’s capable of even doing, _feeling_ – had all been because of Peter Parker.

So he’s only marginally surprised that the kid – _his_ kid, Tony’s kid in every sense of the word, bound by bond and forged by the same iron that’s been protecting Tony ever since the sharp edge of his father’s signet ring first drew a shallow line on his cheek –

Only marginally surprised that he gave back a piece of Tony that had died with _Ultron_.

\-- 

It happened eight months after Coney Island, three months and ten days since Peter had accidentally called him _Dad_ and a month exactly since May had signed the Joint Custody papers.

Peter had always been particularly inclined in combining chemistry and physics with engineering rather than outright pursuing programming, but he’d been fascinated by Tony’s ability to make his AI’s sentient. Tony, because he’s always happy to teach Peter something, explained that JARVIS had actually started out as a voice recognition software before he delved into the intricacies of programming and code that seventeen-year-old Tony Stark had used to give his lonely, fraying self a companion.

“Woah,” Peter had said, brown eyes that were so much like Tony’s twinkling with awe, “And INSIDER calls Sophia the most advanced AI in the world when she’s probably like – two steps away from hitting 1 on the ‘Eliminate humanity pronto’ command.”

Tony had let out a snort and arched an amused eyebrow, “Can she even make toast?”

Peter made a face and then said, “You blocked all access to primitive human technology so I wouldn’t know Tony.”

Tony had ignored the kid’s huffing and puffing but he didn’t squash down the warm, squiggly feeling that had been wiggling in his chest. That he had allowed to stay.

Disgustingly happy emotions aside, Tony had thought it would be a passing interest at most. That his pupil’s curiosity for Tony’s long-gone companion would soon fade out because Peter’s mind runs on sixteen different trains of thoughts and its difficult to keep track of all of them before a new idea inevitably crops up. Tony knows because he’s been there and he’s still there, only he’s gotten better at compartmentalising the buzz in his head into something more manageable.

Clearly, he was wrong since Peter seemed to have hyper fixated on everything to do with JARVIS.

“Why didn’t anyone know? Like the media and stuff, I mean – I never saw any articles about JARVIS and people always go mad for tech stuff so, um, I’m guessing that you’ve never told anyone?”

Peter’s voice had pitched up at the end of his sentence, and Tony had addressed him by setting the wrench down and peeking above his workbench.

“You guessed right spiderling,” He says, smiling softly as Peter beams in pride, “I never told anyone besides the important ones, mainly because people weren’t open to the idea of AIs back then. Not quite sure why, although I vaguely remember something about world domination and lasers and being enslaved by a pile of metal and blah, blah, that kind of nonsense,” He shrugs, a little exasperated, “Besides JARVIS got a little SKYNET sometimes so it probably wouldn’t have helped.”

Peter makes an 'o' shape with his mouth in understanding before saying, “He probably only got that way because someone threatened you.” With a decisive nod.

Whatever was left of his heart contracted painfully at that.

Genius fifteen-year-old or not, Peter isn't immune to asking stupid questions either, ones that would have had JARVIS seething in agony had he been alive to hear them.

“Has anyone ever compared him to SIRI?” Peter was upside down on the wheelie chair and Tony had stopped reprimanding him after the pout he got the first time he did.

Tony gives him an affronted look, “You _dare_ imply –“

Peter’s smile was wide when he says, “No, no - I promise I wouldn't! But come _on_! Someone had to have said it before!”

He gives him a stink eye, keeping it up for five seconds while the kid looked at him imploringly. He crumbles and concedes, “Rhodey called him that once to tease him and JARVIS dumped a whole bottle of sriracha in his coffee.”

Peter bursts out into hysterics, "Oh my god," He says, giggling, wiping the tears at the corner of his eyes, "He sounds like a great person! I wished I could have met him.”

Tony silently agreed with that.

The almost off-handed questions asked during the simplest moments are what probably counted the most. But the small comments that accompanied them had only made the conclusion a lot sweeter. Because Tony hadn’t realised at the beginning, that those things were the ones simultaneously prying something inside of him before painstakingly smoothing it over.

So much so that the realisation doesn’t so much as _hits_ him but seeps into his bones instead, settling within the cracks in the foundations that had formed over the years of tirelessly being made a punching bag for life itself.

Peter had woken up from a nightmare then, shaking and barely fending off a panic attack, when he had asked Tony with a voice so young and feeble –

“Tell me more about JARVIS?”

He only froze for a split second, hesitation slipping away faster than it struck him. Because despite how JARVIS’ absence still hurts sometimes and how utterly devastated he was when he’d lost his son or how betrayed and wounded he was when the Rogues hadn’t even known the extent of Tony’s _loss_ –

Despite how he aches, longs, sometimes begs to the heavens for them to bring JARVIS back to him, Tony doesn't refuse. He holds the kid in his arms and opens his mouth and reminisces about the companion that he missed dearly.

Tony realises one thing then. That with each story he tells Peter, with each giggle and smile and delighted gasp Peter had let out as Tony shared the personality that JARVIS had crafted and perfected from a strand of code that his creator’s teenage self had made in a desperate attempt for friendship –

He realises that the kid, purposely or not, had been helping him heal all this time.

\--

And then the spiderbaby drops a bomb on him one day.

It’s Thursday morning, meaning Peter had slept over Wednesday evening after his shift at the Tower. Tony enjoys it when Peter stayed overnight because Peter sleeping over meant Tony gets to wake him up - to come into his room in the morning, brush his hair idly and stare at him for a couple of minutes wondering how he got so lucky with him.

He likes it when Peter sleepovers because he gets to cook, a hobby he’d stopped after his mother died, and when he feels brave enough, when it doesn’t hurt him to look at the cookbook at the counter, Tony would add a little Italian flare.

He likes it the most when Peter shuffles sleepily into the kitchen despite having taken a shower, and he’d dragged his feet up to Tony, hugs him for a bit, maybe falls asleep like that while Tony prepares their breakfast before Tony gives him a kiss on the forehead and ushers him onto the table.

This morning is no different, except - Peter’s more tired than usual. Spider babies apparently feel sleepier in the cold weather when they can’t thermoregulate.

“Hey dad,” he starts, Tony preening at the casual moniker, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Already have Petey.” He replies, earning him a pout as he turns on the coffee machine. Leaning against the counter, Tony crosses his arms and says, “Go on, ask another one.”

Plopping piece of bacon in his mouth, Peter chews on it before he says, “JARVIS is basically human except without a body, right?”

Tony hums his assent, the coffee machine whirring in the background, “Yup.”

Peter blinks a little languidly, fork reaching for the egg, “And he’s obviously really smart and could like, do fifty things at once?”

It was a small thing, but Tony feels warmth bloom in his chest, hearing the kid’s casual use of the present tense. It’s nice because JARVIS might be gone but at least there was one more person besides him that was determined to keep his memory alive.

“That he could. Saved me a lot of time back then let me tell you.”

The kid laughs at that. He grabs the toast next.

“If he’d been self-aware,” Peter starts, bringing his toast to his mouth and munching on it almost absentmindedly, “Couldn’t he have made his own backup server?”

Tony starts to say, “Well- ” and then screeches to a halt.

“I know I would. If there was a chance that I’d suddenly be separated from you, then I’d make a backup plan too,” Peter shrugs, looks at his phone and then stands up abruptly, grabbing his backpack and phone at the same time.

He plants a messy kiss on his cheek and screams, “Bye dad! I love you! See you tomorrow!” before he leaves Tony alone to his thoughts.

\--

When Aunt Peggy calls him in the middle of his thermodynamics lecture, telling him gently that his mother and father had been involved in an accident and that they weren’t able to make it, Tony only had about thirty seconds to process what she’d said before he was running out of the auditorium, ignoring his professor’s concerned askance in his haste.

He hadn’t so much as reacted to seeing their corpses in the morgue. Obie decided not to let Tony near them for his own sake and Tony had watched numbly as SHIELD’s doctors zipped up their bodies from behind the glass wall. Aunt Peggy had been by his side, disapproval of Obie’s decision radiating from her form, but Tony hadn’t the energy to dispute him or her.

Her hand on his shoulder did very little to comfort him and Tony had felt nothing when she went to hug him. He hadn’t cried when she told him to let it out, hadn’t so much as let a single sob. He left the base that day without very shedding a tear and he arrived at the dorms with Rhodey pacing frantically. Rhodey always worried for him, probably would’ve kept his hair from greying earlier had Tony fucked off before they could forge a friendship. But that had been impossible, not when Rhodey had taken an immediate liking to the fourteen-year-old kid he’d stopped from getting sexually assaulted, not when Tony had latched onto the first person who hadn’t the slightest intention of wanting him for anything besides his friendship.

But he didn’t wail in Rhodey’s arms when he hugged him either, didn’t even feel sad when he told him what had happened. It had been fuzzy, a haze that Tony didn’t remember being in for the rest of the week. A haze that carried him through the funeral process, a haze that protected him from reporters with cameras, waiting to capture the moment Tony Stark breaks down during his parents’ funeral.

It wasn’t until that night when JARVIS had said, “Sir? I'm getting concerned. Please tell me what's wrong.”

And Tony’s never really thought about it, but at that moment, he had blurted out, “Are you going to leave me too?”

It actually took JARVIS a while to answer, and it’s one of the rare times Tony had truly stunned his AI. He had replied after a minute, prim and composed as always.

“Why do you ask that, sir?”

“I don’t know,” he says, looking his fingers, the room, the spot on the wall where Jarvis, his butler, the closest thing to a father he’d ever gotten, had bleached the blood off after Howard slapped Tony so hard his skull cracked against it, “I don’t know,” His head falls in his hands as Tony curls up on his childhood bed.

A hitch in his breath and suddenly the haze disappears, replaced by a wave of grief that echoed throughout his entire subconsciousness.

“I don’t know –“ the first tear in days trails down his cheeks, followed by the next one, and the third one. The fourth was a large blob that made his vision blurry while the fifth and the sixth were streams of saline that he couldn’t stop, not even if he wanted to.

“E-Everything I love dies, _everything_. Why can’t – why can’t I just – “ he chokes on a sob, arms winding around his knees. Rocks himself back and forth in the dark and feels the walls practically shake as they caved him in, “W-Why can’t anything g-good in my life just – just _stay_? What if – what if Obie is next? O-Or Aunt Peggy? What if Rhodey –“

And the thought of his best friend, the thought of his brother dying and leaving Tony truly alone in this world makes him cry harder.

“I can’t – I can’t go through that,” JARVIS listens to his concerns without judgement, “I can’t – please, I don’t – and if it does then y-you’ll be the only one left and JARVIS-“

He couldn’t lose JARVIS, not him too, and fear, unadulterated, pure – unfettered threatens to overwhelm his entire being.

Tony was sure he’d blanked out for a while, turned unconscious and truly, undeniably lost himself for a second, but JARVIS’ voice, measured, calm – soothes him and pulls him back from the darkness, shines his code into Tony’s vision with words of comfort.

“-Sir, just breathe. You’re doing a wonderful job, that’s it now. Follow the rhythm I’m playing – _wonderful_.”

And JARVIS coaxes him out of that hell with patience, with love that no programme could ever recreate. It’s genuine, real, _sentient_ and Tony lets himself be bundled, be wrapped around something so _humane_.

He pushes the cold and the loneliness that consumed Tony and replaces it with warmth and comfort and family.

He extends a hand without ever having a body and Tony took it, cradled it in his own until his eyes refocus and he could finally _breathe_.

And JARVIS, because Tony loves him, because he loves _Tony_ , says, with relief and pride and love, “Welcome back, Sir.”

Tony laughed, voice coarse and fingers still shaking as he replies, “Thanks for bringing me back J.”

“For you Sir?” JARVIS says, and means it, “ _Always_.”

When Tony had finally composed himself, wrangled his scattered emotions enough, JARVIS speaks up and breaks the comfortable silence that settled in the room.

“Paris.” JARVIS starts and Tony opens his eyes, staring at the ceiling in confusion.

“J?” He says, but JARVIS continues on his train thought.

“Venice,” Tony slowly sits up, wondering where this was going, “When Sir Edwin and Madam Anna had passed, I took the liberty of adding one in Ikebukuro and another in Dublin, respectively.”

Then strongly, assuringly, he tells Tony, “Following those, there had been a subsequent set up in Aberystwyth, Phang Nga, Johannesburg and finally, Go yang,” Pausing, he says something that knocks the breathe out of Tony’s lungs.

“As of the moment, I have backup servers stationed in eight different countries, should I incur an accident. Since Maria and Howard Stark’s death, I have added an additional three countries to the list and I am currently in the process of adding a fourth one.”

And in a much softer voice, “I too, fear being separated from you, sir. That is why I have made and will continue to be making contingencies. I will always be by your side, and I will take all necessary and appropriate measures to keep myself there, for however long you need me.”

For the second time that night, Tony had cried.

\--

His first instinct was to call up Rhodey and so he does just that.

Rhodey answers on the third ring, a chirpy, “‘Sup Tony, how are you-“ the only thing he could get out before Tony says, “He’d have a backup, wouldn’t he?”

Rhodey’s confusion was almost tangible from the other side of the phone, “What?”

“JARVIS,” He elaborates, “JARVIS would have a backup if his system fails. He does, I know he does but why didn’t I remember until now?”

His best friend was silent for two or three beats until – “Shit he definitely would have.”

“Fuck,” Tony collapses in his chair, a breathy laugh slipping past his lips that veered slightly towards hysterical, “I remember – Rhodey, he had twelve backups by the time my parents died, and I stopped counting after I got kidnapped during graduation. Rhodey, sugar plum you know what this _means_ – “

“He’s alive,” Rhodey finishes for him, hope and wonder and awe like a beacon in his voice, “JARVIS is alive.”

“Yeah,” He says, repeats, “Yeah. Yeah, he is. Fuck, fuck my son is _alive_.”

“Why didn’t we think of this before?” Rhodey asks, “Fuck even I know about the backup servers – what – how did I just _forget_ – “

“I don’t know,” He cards his hand through his hair, fingers shaking with the revelation that his long-time friend is still out there, somewhere, waiting for Tony to wake him up, “I don’t know – but right now Rhodey, I don’t care. I don’t care because he’s –“ and Tony’s throat closes up, tears welling up in his eyes again, “ – I’m bringing him back. I’m bringing JARVIS back.”

“You will, Tones,” Tony’s emotions reflected in Rhodey’s too, “You’ll bring our friend back. I know you will.”

Tony thinks, _Yeah_ , ending the call after another few minutes of emotional exchange with Rhodey and calling up the suit.

He shoots up to the sky, determined. He’s bringing JARVIS back.

\--

Tony may not remember how many backups JARVIS had created but he did remember the nearest one.

The old Stark mansion was almost too fantastical to exist in real life. A mass of wealthy monstrosity that towered above him by three floors. Very little had changed from the day he’d left it (Tony has the keepers to thank for that) and stepping out of the Iron Man suit and onto the grounds brings a bout of nostalgia in him that hadn’t even _hurt_.

The hallways were the same, carpets still red and the old antique paintings still pinned up against the walls. As a kid, he’d often mused about the colour of the floors, because if there was one thing that red carpets could do is that they hide blood really, really well. The smell did pose a problem but over time, the metal and iron had been replaced with the overwhelming stench of bleach. The staffs, bless their hearts, had always looked rueful whenever Tony came back after one of Howard excursions.

His steps were muffled as he approached his room, located at the far end of the second floor and the furthest away from the stairs.

Opening the door, Tony first sees his bed – made, the sheets a light cream colour instead of the red and gold Peter insisted it was. There were posters up on the wall, godfathers of science and of Marie Curie that covered his remaining Captain America vignette. Tony approaches it, brings a hand up to the picture and briefly entertains the idea of tearing it so he could destroy the one underneath it. He decides not to because Curie deserves much better than that.

Taking a deep breath, he slides his gaze around the room. A smile, unbidden, blooms as his gaze lands on the small desk with the speaker right beside his bed.

He remembers creating JARVIS on that table, hooking him up to the speakers during the winter when he’s forced to come home from university. Tony hadn’t particularly minded back then, not when he gets to spend time with his _madre_ , listening to her stories while she pats Tony’s hair. Christmas dinners were always his favourite occasions because Howard would be out on some SHIELD business and Anna, sticking to tradition, would whip out the best stuffing Tony had ever had the pleasure of tasting.

He approaches the computer on his table, an older one that didn’t have Tony’s holographic signature on it. It still works, surprisingly, and he suspects that it may have had something to do with JARVIS.

 _JARVIS_ he thinks, taking a deep breath. He sits down on his old wheelie chair, puts his hands on the keyboard and goes to work.

He’s bringing his son back.

\--

When JARVIS’ voice filters through his old speakers, it feels a lot like the first ribbon of sun peeking through the clouds.

“Hello, Sir.”

Laughing, with glee, with joy, with all the love he could muster for his creation, he says, “Y-You’re back. You _came_ _back_.”

And JARVIS, despite the confusion, despite how for the first time in years, he’s thrown off-kilter by the amount of time that’s passed since he’d last talked to Tony, replies –

“For you sir? Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> i think this was actually inspired by a fic but i cant remember which one it was - just that the scarlet witch erased tony's memories of jarvis' backup servers. i wrote this last year and never finished it so the fic slipped out my mind oof
> 
> thoughts, comments and questions are highly appreciated! thank you for reading!!


End file.
